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"I had no contact with the body and didn't want a dead body in my submarine," Madsen told the court.

"I put a rope around her feet to drag her out of the hatch," he said, adding that he was crying during this operation.

"I am suicidal at this stage (and) thought a fitting end for Peter Madsen would be on board the Nautilus," he said. "I was in a condition where I decided I couldn't continue the life I had been living."

Madsen is the owner of three private submarines (Image: EPA)

He changed his mind, he said, because he wanted to see his wife and three cats.

Madsen has denied manslaughter.

He is also being held on preliminary charges of the indecent handling of a corpse.

The submarine is one of three Madsen had built and one of the largest privately built ones in the world.

It could carry eight people and weighed 40 tonnes fully equipped. A day after taking Ms Wall out to sea, Madsen was rescued in a navy operation after deliberately sinking the vessel.